Pope Francis backs same-sex civil unions

stevevw said:

Where have I said same sex couples cannot get married. I am highlighting the different and important definition of traditional marriage which has certain benefits that should not be undermined by changing the definition of TM.

Click to expand...

And you seem very much to be a supporter of SSM only.

Same sex relationhsips can be acommodated in a different way with their own version of marriage which will give them all the rights they want. But why take down TM in the process. But that was the intention of SSM activists. They want to dismatle tradition across the board with mariage, mothers, fathers and traditional families.

Click to expand...

Such an attitude seems to be nothing more than crying, "But marriage is our word, you can't have it!"

And don't tell me that gay couples want to dismantle traditional marriage. Traditional marriage is a man and a woman. Gay couples aren't doing a single thing that's going to change the right for a man and a woman to get married. What are they doing to stop it?

Sorry, I have not ignored that post on purpose. I have just had to reply to several people and must have overlooked that one. Will get to it next.

Click to expand...

I look forward to it.

Bradskii said:

My wife and I were married in a dusty registry office in a foreign land. Just the two of us and two witnesses we didn't know. No friends, no relatives. No oaths. No walk down the aisle, no flowers, no wedding dress (points for the reference).

Click to expand...

I can imagine that under the circumstances, that could have been quite romantic and remain a fond memory.

Were we dismantling the concept of 'traditional marriage'? Well, both our kids had a more trad version ('cept no church) so I guess not.

Click to expand...

You'll have to ask Steve--he thinks he's the one who gets to decide that for the rest of us.

All this 'sky is falling' nonsense is just that. Nonsense.

Click to expand...

Kylie said:

No, you aren't following the thread.

SteveVW: Since the same sex marriage laws came in some activists are taking this as a right to push this into every corner of society by forcing churches to perform same sex marriages (Post 790)

Speedwell: Absolute nonsense. Maybe it can happen in Australia, but no church in the US has ever been forced to perform a gay marriage and such a thing is prohibited by our Constitution. (Post 791)

Kylie: I'm not aware of any church in Australia that has been forced to perform a same sex marriage ceremony if they didn't want to. (Post 792)

SteveVW: It may not be the church itself at the moment but we are seeing the priests themselves and any associated entity of the church like Church owned buildings, schools, reception venues being forced to hold same sex marriages, ceremonies, and receptions. (Post 794) (Emphasis mine.)

So that is where you made the claim that churches were being forced to hold same sex marriages when they didn't want to.

Kylie: Please give an example of this, where a church has been forced to host a same sex marriage, ceremony or reception against their will. (Post 798) (Again, emphasis mine.)

Click to expand...

But notice how you are continuing to ask for an example of an actual church when I clarified that it may not be happening in churches at the moment. You are continuing to ask for something I clarified was not happening.

You will note at this point I am specifically asking you to provide an example of a priest or church or church owned building being forced to hold a same sex marriage against their will.

Click to expand...

Once again you are asking for an example within the actual church which I said may not be happening. As far as associated entities related to the church I once again refer to Bishop Loves case. I have also provided other examples such as the Methodist Church owned Orange Grove site who lost their tax ememption for not holding SSM on their private property. I have also provided other examples but as I said I want you to address each example singularly.

Since I asked you to provide such evidence, you have tried to pretend we are talking about people copping flack for disagreeing with SSM.

Click to expand...

No as far as I am concerned I provided examples that you wanted, you rejected them and then we moved on to a related issue that came up in the natural flow of the debate. You can' t just pick and choose what to debate and what not to.

But as this clearly shows, we are talking about churches being forced to perform same sex marriages against their will.

Click to expand...

No we are not talking about the churches themselves. I have pointed this out several times but you seem to ignore this. It is you who are changing the goal posts on this. And We can talk about more than one issue relating to SSM you know.

You don't get to control what can and cannot be dicussed, thats called a denial of free speech. You made a claim remember that no one is being denied free speech in promoting TM. Am I not allowed to reply to that and when I do reply you dont get to choose to ignore that because you want to restrict what can be discussed on this issue. In an court it is all relevant to discuss. You claim I am not answering your requests but I have. You just dont like the anmswers. But you are really the one not responding. I can play the who said what as well. IE
Steve in post #829
But as a result people are being attacked simply for holding the belief and view of traditional marriage between a man and a women. Now a doctor, minister, priest or citizen only has to mention they believe traditional marriage which is an idea that has been supported by believers and non-believers for 100s of years up until 5 years ago across a whole variety of cultures and times, is increasingly becoming a truth which cannot be spoken.

Kylie claimed this was not the case in post #830
They have freedom of speech, which means that if someone believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, they have the right to say so.

Then Steve replied to Kylies claim in post #833 with a list of examples of how a doctor, minister, priest or citizen is denied that freedom of speech.
Steve said
As I said in todays PC environment even expressing that you support traditional marriage is not being allowed by more and more people and outlets and this can lead to people losing privileges, being demoted, closed down, losing benefits, being attacked on social media , threatened and even getting sacked IE

The list followed as you know because you kept rejecting them as irrelevant IE Fire Chief, Family First, Adoption agencies, women fired for expressing support for TM on Facebook, Church gets threat to be fire bombed , Superman Comic writer, Archbishop Porteous taken to tribunal, Universities denied accreditation, Sermons Subpoenas by City, Doctor and IBM executive forced to resign, University academics, mothers, etc. all attacked and suffering damages for expressing their free right in support of TM.

But you completely ignored all this and claimed it was irrelevant. But here above we have the conversation where you made the claim and I responded. It was a legitimate debate just like any other and now you want to control what can and cannot be said and debated. It seems you are following the SSM activists tactics of denying certain speech because it doesnt help your cause.

You only came close to providing an example of this once, with the example of Bishop William Love that you gave in post 801. And even then, it barely qualifies, since the issue was he was refusing to abide by his own church's instructions. I even specifically responded to that point:

Kylie: He wasn't the one being forced to perform the marriage though, was he? Seems like the problem here was that he was saying, "I don't want to have to perform same sex weddings, and I don't want anyone else to either." It seems like it's a case of no one is saying he has top perform them, but he isn't allowed to stop others from doing them. (Post 814)

Click to expand...

And as I pointed out he was being forced to go along and perform SSM in the church he was overseeing by his own church. He said he wouldn’t go along and explained why and his church hierarchy disciplined him for going against their policy of allowing SSM. So he he suffered the consequences and now is forced to allwo SSM.

As I also said it doesn’t matter who is doing the forcing whether its a church or the government or a company a person is still being forced to go along with performing SSM. The fact it’s a church makes it worse. But come to think of it it’s not only an example of an associated church entity being forced to perform SSM but it’s also a church as Bishop Love was representing his church in not having to perform SSM. So you chose to make rationalizations why it doesn’t count. We come to an impasse.

But the unfortunate thing about all this is that you wanted to restrict the criteria for how religious freedoms are being denied to just churches when there was a wide range of situations where people were being denied apart from performing SSM and including non-religious and church entities like the Fire chief etc. But we got stuck on this rigid criterion you set for proving a case which would not happen in any court. All evidence should be allowed. By restricting it you are denying justice.

I'm more than happy to move onto a discussion about people and their right to free speech, but before we do that I'd like to finish off the discussion you are trying to get out of about churches being forced to perform SSM. We can end it by one of the following:

1. You admit your claim that churches are being forced to perform same sex marriages when they don't want to is wrong.

Click to expand...

1. First you will have to adjust your criteria. I clarified it wasnt happening in churches themselves. I cannot admit that it was not happening in the entities connected to churches like schools, to priests, other church reps like marriage celebrates, seminaries, Universities ect.

   [*]You provide a single example of a church being forced to perform a same sex marriage against its will.

   Click to expand...

Option 1 or Option 2 please.

Click to expand...

I choose 2 which I said I have already done. So I will go back into the article with this example and show how it is about a priest being forced to perform SSM.

Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany had his ministry officially restricted by the national church over his refusal to enforce a recently enacted resolution allowing congregations in his regional body to bless same-sex marriages.
Episcopal bishop disciplined for opposing gay marriage says he plans to appeal Church-enforced punishment

So the article clearly states that Bishop Loves and his church was forced into perfroming SSM as thius was the Episcopal Church’s policy. Bishop Love choose not to have his church forced into performing SSM and defied the Church’s policy of allowing SSM. For this he was disciplined.

You want to argue the semantics but it comes down to a Bishop and his church being forced to perform SSM and suffering damages for not doing so. You are missing the point in all this which is someone is being denied their religious right to follow their conscience.

stevevw said:

But notice how you are continuing to ask for an example of an actual church when I clarified that it may not be happening in churches at the moment. You are continuing to ask for something I clarified was not happening.

Once again you are asking for an example within the actual church which I said may not be happening. As far as associated entities related to the church I once again refer to Bishop Loves case. I have also provided other examples such as the Methodist Church owned Orange Grove site who lost their tax ememption for not holding SSM on their private property. I have also provided other examples but as I said I want you to address each example singularly.

No as afr as I am concerned I provided examples that you wanted, you rejected them and then we moved on to a related issue that came up in the natural flow of the debate. You cant just pick and choose what to debate and what no to. We can debate 2 or 3 issues at the same time. No we are not talking about the churches themselves. It is you who are changing the goal posts on this. And We can talk about more than one issue relating to SSM you know. I have given my examples for the church associated entities what more can I do.

You don't get to control what can and cannot be dicussed, thats called a denial of free speech. You made a claim remember that no one is being denied free speech in promoting TM. Am I not allowed to reply to that and when I do reply you dont get to choose to ignore that because you want to restrict what can be discussed on this issue. In an court it is all relevant to discuss. You claim I am not answering your requests but I have. You just dont like the anmswers. But you are really the one not responding. I can play the who said what as well. IE
Steve in post #829
But as a result people are being attacked simply for holding the belief and view of traditional marriage between a man and a women. Now a doctor, minister, priest or citizen only has to mention they believe traditional marriage which is an idea that has been supported by believers and non-believers for 100s of years up until 5 years ago across a whole variety of cultures and times, is increasingly becoming a truth which cannot be spoken.

Kylie claimed this was not the case in post #830
They have freedom of speech, which means that if someone believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, they have the right to say so.

Then Steve replied to Kylies claim in post #833 with a list of examples of how a doctor, minister, priest or citizen is denied that freedom of speech.
Steve said
As I said in todays PC environment even expressing that you support traditional marriage is not being allowed by more and more people and outlets and this can lead to people losing privileges, being demoted, closed down, losing benefits, being attacked on social media , threatened and even getting sacked IE

The list followed as you know because you kept rejecting them as irrelevant IE Fire Chief, Family First, Adoption agencies, women fired for expressing support for TM on Facebook, Church gets threat to be fire bombed , Superman Comic writer, Archbishop Porteous taken to tribunal, Universities denied accreditation, Sermons Subpoenas by City, Doctor and IBM executive forced to resign, University academics, mothers, etc. all attacked and suffering damages for expressing their free right in support of TM.

But you completely ignored all this and claimed it was irrelevant. But here above we have the conversation where you made the claim and I responded. It was a legitimate debate just like any other and now you want to control what can and cannot be said and debated. It seems you are following the SSM activists tactics of denying certain speech.

And as I pointed out he was being forced to go along and perform SSM by his own church. He said he wouldn’t and explained why and his church hierarchy disciplined him for going against their policy of allowing SSM. So he had to resign because otherwise if he stayed he would have had to perform SSM in his church.

As I also said it doesn’t matter who is doing the forcing whether its a church or the government or a company a person is still being forced to go along with performing SSM. The fact it’s a church makes it worse. But come to think of it it’s not only an example of an associated church entity being forced to perform SSM but it’s also a church as Bishop Love was representing his church in not having to perform SSM. So you chose to make rationalizations why it doesn’t count. We come to an impasse.

But the unfortunate thing about all this is that you wanted to restrict the criteria for how religious freedoms are being denied to just churches when there was a wide range of situations where people were being denied apart from performing SSM and including non-religious and church entities like the Fire chief etc. But we got stuck on this rigid criterion you set for proving a case which would not happen in any court. All evidence should be allowed. By restricting it you are denying justice.

1. First you will have to adjust your criteria. I clarified it wasnt happening in churches themselves. I cannot admit that it was not happening in the entities connected to churches like schools, to priests, other church reps like marriage celebrates, seminaries, Universities ect.

I choose 2 which I said I have already done. So I will go back into the article with this example and show how it is about a priest being forced to perform SSM.

Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany had his ministry officially restricted by the national church over his refusal to enforce a recently enacted resolution allowing congregations in his regional body to bless same-sex marriages.
Episcopal bishop disciplined for opposing gay marriage says he plans to appeal Church-enforced punishment

So the article clearly states that Bishop Loves and his church was forced into perfroming SSM as thius was the Episcopal Church’s policy. Bishop Love choose not to have his church forced into performing SSM and defied the Church’s policy of allowing SSM. For this he was disciplined.

You want to argue the semantics but it comes down to a Bishop and his church being forced to perform SSM and suffering damages for not doing so. You are missing the point in all this which is someone is being denied their religious right to follow their conscience.

Click to expand...

You dont seem to understand what free speech entails.

Freedom of concsience is not the same as freedom of religion.

stevevw said:

I choose 2 which I said I have already done. So I will go back into the article with this example and show how it is about a priest being forced to perform SSM.

Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany had his ministry officially restricted by the national church over his refusal to enforce a recently enacted resolution allowing congregations in his regional body to bless same-sex marriages.
Episcopal bishop disciplined for opposing gay marriage says he plans to appeal Church-enforced punishment

So the article clearly states that Bishop Loves and his church was forced into perfroming SSM as thius was the Episcopal Church’s policy. Bishop Love choose not to have his church forced into performing SSM and defied the Church’s policy of allowing SSM. For this he was disciplined.

You want to argue the semantics but it comes down to a Bishop and his church being forced to perform SSM and suffering damages for not doing so. You are missing the point in all this which is someone is being denied their religious right to follow their conscience.

Click to expand...

So is a Catholic Priest who wants to marry a same-sex couple but is forbidden by his bishop. He is being denied the right to follow his conscience just as much as is Bishop Love. But both cases are matters internal to their respective church governments. There is no constitutional issue at stake here and unless we belong to either of those two churches, it is none of our business at all.

Speedwell said:

I can imagine that under the circumstances, that could have been quite romantic and remain a fond memory.

Click to expand...

It kinda was in both respects. Waaay too long and complicated a story to repeat here (a perfect finale for a rom-com). But wouldn't you know, before covid hit we were doing some travelling and spent our 40th anniversary in the same place (Cairo) and had a romantic dinner that night in the hotel where we'd had dinner 40 years previously. The first time a little scared and excited, wondering where it was all going to go, and the second wondering why we we'd been so lucky.

These non trad marriages seem to work ok...

stevevw said:

It is certainly logical that if the SSM is a civil rights law then anyone including religions is in violation of civil rights. That makes a big dilemma for the State where those who feel their civil rights are violated regardless of religious freedom are going to continually object and make life hard for religious entities and the Government. So something has to give.

Click to expand...

Courts have been clear that marriage is a right. Not just gay marriage. But that has never meant that you could pick a random minister and expect to be married. The reason seems to be that churches and religion in general aren’t public accommodations. But they can do things that bring them into that category.

stevevw said:

But notice how you are continuing to ask for an example of an actual church when I clarified that it may not be happening in churches at the moment. You are continuing to ask for something I clarified was not happening.

Once again you are asking for an example within the actual church which I said may not be happening. As far as associated entities related to the church I once again refer to Bishop Loves case. I have also provided other examples such as the Methodist Church owned Orange Grove site who lost their tax ememption for not holding SSM on their private property. I have also provided other examples but as I said I want you to address each example singularly.

No as far as I am concerned I provided examples that you wanted, you rejected them and then we moved on to a related issue that came up in the natural flow of the debate. You can' t just pick and choose what to debate and what not to. No we are not talking about the churches themselves. I have pointed this out several times but you seem to ignore this. It is you who are changing the goal posts on this. And We can talk about more than one issue relating to SSM you know.

You don't get to control what can and cannot be dicussed, thats called a denial of free speech. You made a claim remember that no one is being denied free speech in promoting TM. Am I not allowed to reply to that and when I do reply you dont get to choose to ignore that because you want to restrict what can be discussed on this issue. In an court it is all relevant to discuss. You claim I am not answering your requests but I have. You just dont like the anmswers. But you are really the one not responding. I can play the who said what as well. IE
Steve in post #829
But as a result people are being attacked simply for holding the belief and view of traditional marriage between a man and a women. Now a doctor, minister, priest or citizen only has to mention they believe traditional marriage which is an idea that has been supported by believers and non-believers for 100s of years up until 5 years ago across a whole variety of cultures and times, is increasingly becoming a truth which cannot be spoken.

Kylie claimed this was not the case in post #830
They have freedom of speech, which means that if someone believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, they have the right to say so.

Then Steve replied to Kylies claim in post #833 with a list of examples of how a doctor, minister, priest or citizen is denied that freedom of speech.
Steve said
As I said in todays PC environment even expressing that you support traditional marriage is not being allowed by more and more people and outlets and this can lead to people losing privileges, being demoted, closed down, losing benefits, being attacked on social media , threatened and even getting sacked IE

The list followed as you know because you kept rejecting them as irrelevant IE Fire Chief, Family First, Adoption agencies, women fired for expressing support for TM on Facebook, Church gets threat to be fire bombed , Superman Comic writer, Archbishop Porteous taken to tribunal, Universities denied accreditation, Sermons Subpoenas by City, Doctor and IBM executive forced to resign, University academics, mothers, etc. all attacked and suffering damages for expressing their free right in support of TM.

But you completely ignored all this and claimed it was irrelevant. But here above we have the conversation where you made the claim and I responded. It was a legitimate debate just like any other and now you want to control what can and cannot be said and debated. It seems you are following the SSM activists tactics of denying certain speech because it doesnt help your cause.

And as I pointed out he was being forced to go along and perform SSM in the church he was overseeing by his own church. He said he wouldn’t go along and explained why and his church hierarchy disciplined him for going against their policy of allowing SSM. So he he suffered the consequences and now is forced to allwo SSM.

As I also said it doesn’t matter who is doing the forcing whether its a church or the government or a company a person is still being forced to go along with performing SSM. The fact it’s a church makes it worse. But come to think of it it’s not only an example of an associated church entity being forced to perform SSM but it’s also a church as Bishop Love was representing his church in not having to perform SSM. So you chose to make rationalizations why it doesn’t count. We come to an impasse.

But the unfortunate thing about all this is that you wanted to restrict the criteria for how religious freedoms are being denied to just churches when there was a wide range of situations where people were being denied apart from performing SSM and including non-religious and church entities like the Fire chief etc. But we got stuck on this rigid criterion you set for proving a case which would not happen in any court. All evidence should be allowed. By restricting it you are denying justice.

1. First you will have to adjust your criteria. I clarified it wasnt happening in churches themselves. I cannot admit that it was not happening in the entities connected to churches like schools, to priests, other church reps like marriage celebrates, seminaries, Universities ect.

I choose 2 which I said I have already done. So I will go back into the article with this example and show how it is about a priest being forced to perform SSM.

Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany had his ministry officially restricted by the national church over his refusal to enforce a recently enacted resolution allowing congregations in his regional body to bless same-sex marriages.
Episcopal bishop disciplined for opposing gay marriage says he plans to appeal Church-enforced punishment

So the article clearly states that Bishop Loves and his church was forced into perfroming SSM as thius was the Episcopal Church’s policy. Bishop Love choose not to have his church forced into performing SSM and defied the Church’s policy of allowing SSM. For this he was disciplined.

You want to argue the semantics but it comes down to a Bishop and his church being forced to perform SSM and suffering damages for not doing so. You are missing the point in all this which is someone is being denied their religious right to follow their conscience.

Click to expand...

I think the bishop Love thing is a bit unusual. The national church didn’t require him to perform a gay marriage. They objected to his attempt to stop churches in his diocese from doing it. We had the reverse problem for a while when presbyteries would have preferred to let their churches perform gay marriages but the denomination didn’t allow it. In a connectional regional authorities often can’t change rules set by the denomination. If they could you’d probably see some regions of the Catholic Church ordaining women, etc.

stevevw said:

But notice how you are continuing to ask for an example of an actual church when I clarified that it may not be happening in churches at the moment. You are continuing to ask for something I clarified was not happening.

Once again you are asking for an example within the actual church which I said may not be happening.

Click to expand...

Absolute rubbish.

You specifically said: "...priests themselves and any associated entity of the church like Church owned buildings, schools, reception venues..."

With just a single exception, none of the examples that you gave have been about any of those entities.

As far as associated entities related to the church I once again refer to Bishop Loves case.

Click to expand...

Which I have already dealt with.

I have also provided other examples such as the Methodist Church owned Orange Grove site who lost their tax ememption for not holding SSM on their private property.

Click to expand...

Actually, I just did a search in this thread for the word "Methodist." There were three results. One was a post in which Ringo84 said they were Methodist, a result which is not applicable to our discussion. One was the post of yours which I am quoting right now, and thus not applicable either, and the other was your post number 801 in this thread. In that post, you listed several examples (none of which were examples of what I asked for, save for the aforementioned Bishop Love case), but the Methodist example was the first one. And that was a case of a pastor who was being sued because he didn't officiate at a same sex wedding, NOT about a church losing its tax exempt status. And the courts found in favour of the pastor anyway.

I also did a search for the words "Orange Grove" and the only result that came back was this post of yours that I am quoting right now.

And just to be safe, I did a search for the phrase "tax exempt" as well. I got the same post of yours, 801, and in that you mention how a Democratic nominee, Beto O’Rourke, wanted to end tax exempt status for churches that didn't perform SSM. But this was only something he wanted to bring in if he became president, which he didn't. And the article you cite doesn't Mention Orange Grove at all.

So if you have posted about the Methodist owned Orange Grove site losing its tax exempt status, you apparently did it without mentioning the words "Methodist," "Orange Grove," or "tax exempt."

I have also provided other examples but as I said I want you to address each example singularly.

Click to expand...

Which I have done.

And apart from the Bishop Love example, NONE of the examples you gave had anything to do with the claim you made.

No as far as I am concerned I provided examples that you wanted, you rejected them and then we moved on to a related issue that came up in the natural flow of the debate. You can' t just pick and choose what to debate and what not to. No we are not talking about the churches themselves. I have pointed this out several times but you seem to ignore this. It is you who are changing the goal posts on this. And We can talk about more than one issue relating to SSM you know.

Click to expand...

I rejected them because I asked for examples of churches or related church entities being forced to perform same sex marriages against their will and out of more than FORTY alleged examples you posted, only one of them came anywhere close to being what I asked for.

You don't get to control what can and cannot be dicussed, thats called a denial of free speech. You made a claim remember that no one is being denied free speech in promoting TM. Am I not allowed to reply to that and when I do reply you dont get to choose to ignore that because you want to restrict what can be discussed on this issue. In an court it is all relevant to discuss. You claim I am not answering your requests but I have. You just dont like the anmswers.

Click to expand...

I'm not saying you can't say whatever you want. I'm just pointing out that, save for one example, nothing that you posted actually answered my question.

But you are really the one not responding. I can play the who said what as well. IE
Steve in post #829
But as a result people are being attacked simply for holding the belief and view of traditional marriage between a man and a women. Now a doctor, minister, priest or citizen only has to mention they believe traditional marriage which is an idea that has been supported by believers and non-believers for 100s of years up until 5 years ago across a whole variety of cultures and times, is increasingly becoming a truth which cannot be spoken.

Kylie claimed this was not the case in post #830
They have freedom of speech, which means that if someone believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, they have the right to say so.

Then Steve replied to Kylies claim in post #833 with a list of examples of how a doctor, minister, priest or citizen is denied that freedom of speech.
Steve said
As I said in todays PC environment even expressing that you support traditional marriage is not being allowed by more and more people and outlets and this can lead to people losing privileges, being demoted, closed down, losing benefits, being attacked on social media , threatened and even getting sacked IE

The list followed as you know because you kept rejecting them as irrelevant IE Fire Chief, Family First, Adoption agencies, women fired for expressing support for TM on Facebook, Church gets threat to be fire bombed , Superman Comic writer, Archbishop Porteous taken to tribunal, Universities denied accreditation, Sermons Subpoenas by City, Doctor and IBM executive forced to resign, University academics, mothers, etc. all attacked and suffering damages for expressing their free right in support of TM.

But you completely ignored all this and claimed it was irrelevant. But here above we have the conversation where you made the claim and I responded. It was a legitimate debate just like any other and now you want to control what can and cannot be said and debated. It seems you are following the SSM activists tactics of denying certain speech because it doesnt help your cause.

Click to expand...

I rejected those claims as irrelevant because we weren't discussing how people are getting called out for advocating traditional marriage only, we were discussing instances where churches or related entities were forced to perform SSM against their wishes AND NONE OF THE EXAMPLES YOU GAVE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT.

And as I pointed out he was being forced to go along and perform SSM in the church he was overseeing by his own church. He said he wouldn’t go along and explained why and his church hierarchy disciplined him for going against their policy of allowing SSM. So he he suffered the consequences and now is forced to allwo SSM.

As I also said it doesn’t matter who is doing the forcing whether its a church or the government or a company a person is still being forced to go along with performing SSM. The fact it’s a church makes it worse. But come to think of it it’s not only an example of an associated church entity being forced to perform SSM but it’s also a church as Bishop Love was representing his church in not having to perform SSM. So you chose to make rationalizations why it doesn’t count. We come to an impasse.

But the unfortunate thing about all this is that you wanted to restrict the criteria for how religious freedoms are being denied to just churches when there was a wide range of situations where people were being denied apart from performing SSM and including non-religious and church entities like the Fire chief etc. But we got stuck on this rigid criterion you set for proving a case which would not happen in any court. All evidence should be allowed. By restricting it you are denying justice.

Click to expand...

And like I said, I'm happy to give you that one.

But remember, it is only one. Hardly the rampage of anti-traditional-marriage-only sentiments that you seem to want to pretend is happening.

First you will have to adjust your criteria. I clarified it wasnt happening in churches themselves. I cannot admit that it was not happening in the entities connected to churches like schools, to priests, other church reps like marriage celebrates, seminaries, Universities ect.

Click to expand...

But you've only been able to produce a single example.

I choose 2 which I said I have already done. So I will go back into the article with this example and show how it is about a priest being forced to perform SSM.

Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany had his ministry officially restricted by the national church over his refusal to enforce a recently enacted resolution allowing congregations in his regional body to bless same-sex marriages.
Episcopal bishop disciplined for opposing gay marriage says he plans to appeal Church-enforced punishment

So the article clearly states that Bishop Loves and his church was forced into perfroming SSM as thius was the Episcopal Church’s policy. Bishop Love choose not to have his church forced into performing SSM and defied the Church’s policy of allowing SSM. For this he was disciplined.

You want to argue the semantics but it comes down to a Bishop and his church being forced to perform SSM and suffering damages for not doing so. You are missing the point in all this which is someone is being denied their religious right to follow their conscience.

Click to expand...

And as I've said, I'm happy to give you that one. But it hardly shows that churches all over the place are being denied their rights. You have taken a single instance of this happening to a single person and then claiming that the rights of Christians all over are being torn away.

And what do those churches think they're doing, denying priests their freedoms. We should close the churches down if they're going to behave like that.

FireDragon76 said:

I think @Tree of Life 's point is that he doesn't think his religion can dictate how people who don't share his religious beliefs live. Which is quite correct. If I'm not a conservative Christian, why should I have to live by the implications of your belief?

Freedom of religion is a widely recognized civil right now among most traditional Protestant churches, and also to a great extent, in Catholicism.

Click to expand...

So basically what you're saying is that man can make God in man's own image. Are you agnostic or Christian. In Christianity, there is only right, God or wrong, evil. You can't have one group of Christians say something is sinful and another group of Christians say the exact same thing is not sinful. Its either one or the other for all Christians.

Hvizsgyak said:

So basically what you're saying is that man can make God in man's own image. Are you agnostic or Christian. In Christianity, there is only right, God or wrong, evil. You can't have one group of Christians say something is sinful and another group of Christians say the exact same thing is not sinful. Its either one or the other for all Christians.

Click to expand...

And I'll take a shot at this. The correct definition of what is right and wrong as regards Christianity is...the one that you promote?

Which effectively means that if we want to know if something is morally acceptable or not, we can ask you.

Hvizsgyak said:

So basically what you're saying is that man can make God in man's own image. Are you agnostic or Christian. In Christianity, there is only right, God or wrong, evil. You can't have one group of Christians say something is sinful and another group of Christians say the exact same thing is not sinful. Its either one or the other for all Christians.

Click to expand...

I'm not a Christian and don't adhere to the tenets of your religion. That's why it says "other religion" in my profile.

VirOptimus said:

You dont seem to understand what free speech entails.

Freedom of concsience is not the same as freedom of religion.

Click to expand...

Why does it matter, all three are rights and are being denied. Freedom of conscience has a lot to do with religious belief. You can just claim conscientious objections to anything. It usually is about a persons beliefs or morals. Thus that is why I stipulated that the people in those situations were conscientiouly objecting to being forced to go against their beliefs. I mention freedom of speech as a seperate and relevant issue relating to SSM. People were being attacked and denied the right to express their views on TM. That included having their speech shut down.

Freedom of conscience is a triviality. There's no PsyCorps to monitor your thoughts, after all.

That's beside the point. The State absolutely has a right and a duty to uphold just and fair civil rights laws, regardless of what the "conscience" of an individual might have to say about it.

hedrick said:

I think the bishop Love thing is a bit unusual. The national church didn’t require him to perform a gay marriage. They objected to his attempt to stop churches in his diocese from doing it. We had the reverse problem for a while when presbyteries would have preferred to let their churches perform gay marriages but the denomination didn’t allow it. In a connectional regional authorities often can’t change rules set by the denomination. If they could you’d probably see some regions of the Catholic Church ordaining women, etc.

Click to expand...

Yes and thats why I said that the example actually is about a church (a complete group of churches) being forced to perform SSM because Bishop Love was in charge of them and did not want his diocese to perform SSM due to it being against his conscience.

FireDragon76 said:

Freedom of conscience is a triviality. There's no PsyCorps to monitor your thoughts, after all.

That's beside the point. The State absolutely has a right and a duty to uphold just and fair civil rights laws, regardless of what the "conscience" of an individual might have to say about it.

Click to expand...

So what about conscientious objections based on a religious belief. A person is being forced to create marriage vows or a cake to celebrate something that goes against their conscience relating to a belief. Can you imagine the State going around forcing peoiple against their conscience to celebrate something they fundelmentally dont believe. We may as well live in North Korea. I can just see it now forcing people up before the State to read out a script saying how they celebrate and embrace SSM against their will.

hedrick said:

Courts have been clear that marriage is a right. Not just gay marriage. But that has never meant that you could pick a random minister and expect to be married. The reason seems to be that churches and religion in general aren’t public accommodations. But they can do things that bring them into that category.

Click to expand...

That line is very grey and sometimes arbitray. For example adoption agencies are religious entities and like many charitities they have helped the State do their work. They are not for profit agencies and rely on a lot of volunteers who happen to mostly be of that faith. They may also need some public money to keep operations going but most of their operations is done from their own funds and workers.

If it wasnt for religious charities society would probably fall aprt and the government would be in a mess as for as welfar work is concerned. So governments rely on religious charities and have been allowing them the right to follow their beliefs for decades. Now all of a sudden they are not and this is leading to many closing down. The alternative is to force the religious entity to place a child in a situation they fundementally are against and even promote it.

stevevw said:

Why does it matter, all three are rights and are being denied. -snip-

Click to expand...

Nope, you are in error,

Its all bigotry by the SSM opponents.

stevevw said:

So governments rely on religious charities and have been allowing them the right to follow their beliefs for decades. Now all of a sudden they are not and this is leading to many closing down.

Click to expand...

You are mistating the position. Religious charities, including adoption agencies, can decide themselves if they want to allow adoption to single sex couples. But if it's government policy that single sex couples must be treated equally then the government can't operate with that charity. It would be associating itself with an act that breaks it's own policies.

So if the agency wants to maintain it's position then it will receive no government help. Their choice is then to obtain funds from elsewhere - feel free to chip in when you like, or perhaps close up due to lack of funds.

Put another way: They are your policies. You go fund them. You ain't using my tax dollar.

Ain't capitalism grand!

Kylie said:

Absolute rubbish.

You specifically said: "...priests themselves and any associated entity of the church like Church owned buildings, schools, reception venues..."

Click to expand...

Yes I meant not the church itself. Why would I say it may not be happening in the church at the moment but other church owned entities like schools for example. That means not the physical building of the church where they hold the Mass but their other connected buildings like schoools halls, seminaries and the reps of that church like priests and marriage celebrates that perform the curches duties outside the physical church.

With just a single exception, none of the examples that you gave have been about any of those entities.

Click to expand...

You vehemently claimed there was not a single example and now you admit there are at least 1. See that is why I persist as I know that you were abitrarily deciding what criteria should count as I said. So based on that same position you have taken I wonder how many others now count if I persist.

Which I have already dealt with.



Actually, I just did a search in this thread for the word "Methodist." There were three results. One was a post in which Ringo84 said they were Methodist, a result which is not applicable to our discussion. One was the post of yours which I am quoting right now, and thus not applicable either, and the other was your post number 801 in this thread. In that post, you listed several examples (none of which were examples of what I asked for, save for the aforementioned Bishop Love case), but the Methodist example was the first one. And that was a case of a pastor who was being sued because he didn't officiate at a same sex wedding, NOT about a church losing its tax exempt status. And the courts found in favour of the pastor anyway.

I also did a search for the words "Orange Grove" and the only result that came back was this post of yours that I am quoting right now.

And just to be safe, I did a search for the phrase "tax exempt" as well. I got the same post of yours, 801, and in that you mention how a Democratic nominee, Beto O’Rourke, wanted to end tax exempt status for churches that didn't perform SSM. But this was only something he wanted to bring in if he became president, which he didn't. And the article you cite doesn't Mention Orange Grove at all.

So if you have posted about the Methodist owned Orange Grove site losing its tax exempt status, you apparently did it without mentioning the words "Methodist," "Orange Grove," or "tax exempt." [/quote] Sorry just rechecked this as I originally did it off the top of my head knowing there was an example but I got the name wrong. Its actually Ocean Grove not Ornage Grove. Here is the article
Judge: Christian Group Can't Bar Same-Sex Ceremony on NJ Property

Which I have done.

And apart from the Bishop Love example, NONE of the examples you gave had anything to do with the claim you made.

Click to expand...

Like I said I am posting each example so we determine if they do apply. Considering your acknowledgement that I was right about Bishop Love despite your constant denial lets see if there are others.

I rejected them because I asked for examples of churches or related church entities being forced to perform same sex marriages against their will and out of more than FORTY alleged examples you posted, only one of them came anywhere close to being what I asked for.

Click to expand...

First there wasnt 40 examples thats an exaggeration. Second you originally cliamed that Biship Loves example did not completely apply. Now you do. So how do we know you are not also wrong about other examples.

I'm not saying you can't say whatever you want. I'm just pointing out that, save for one example, nothing that you posted actually answered my question.

Click to expand...

So lets see. The Ocean Gove example is awaiting your reply.

I rejected those claims as irrelevant because we weren't discussing how people are getting called out for advocating traditional marriage only, we were discussing instances where churches or related entities were forced to perform SSM against their wishes AND NONE OF THE EXAMPLES YOU GAVE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT.

Click to expand...

So how do you explain that we got on to freedom of speech rights. How do you explain that you made the claim that no one is being denied freedom of speech in promoting TM. If you trace that conversation back you will find it was a natural extention of our debate. Are you now wanting to erase whole sections ofour debate like it doesnt count anymore. You know we can discuss more than 1 issue at a time. It seems you are trying to control the debate.

And like I said, I'm happy to give you that one.

Click to expand...

Wait a minute, the conversation I just posted shows we were discussing freedom of speech regarding the right to promote TM without getting hauled to court or attacked and losing your job. If you trace the conversation back you will find it was a natural progression of our conversation. You can’t just ignore and wipe out large sections of a debate like it didn’t happen because you don’t feel like dealing with it. You can't just control a conversation like your the thought and language police.

But you've only been able to produce a single example.

Click to expand...

One example and another one pending. We will see.

And as I've said, I'm happy to give you that one. But it hardly shows that churches all over the place are being denied their rights. You have taken a single instance of this happening to a single person and then claiming that the rights of Christians all over are being torn away.

Click to expand...

First like I said there are other examples yet to be proven. You have acknowledge one example for which you originally denied so lets see if theres more directly relating to church associated entities. The Ocean Grove examples is one.

But now we are getting down to the crux of the matter. You just said that Ive taken a single instance of this happening to a single person and then claiming that the rights of Christians all over are being torn away. When you make that claim "that Christians all over" then you have to include examples ' all over' where this has happened including outside the church and its entities.

I contunally said you are restricting the issue of people being denied religious freedom to a narrow criteria and you kept fixating this criteria on the Church at first and then the Church related entities. I said that the issue is much wider than this as with Christian Cake makers, Floral arrangers, wedding photographers, marriage celebtates, private business's who are also being denied their rights.

So when we widen the criteria and take all these Christians cases into consideration as well as all the freedom of speech rights where Christians are being attacked and suffering damages there is a wide spread denial of "Christians all over" being denied their rights relating to the law changes regarding SSM and TM.

And what do those churches think they're doing, denying priests their freedoms. We should close the churches down if they're going to behave like that.

Click to expand...

Well I sort of agree. Not so much about closing them down but to ensure they allow people their right to their beliefs and conscience. Remember that the churches that do allow SSM are a very small minority and not really acknowledged as within the Christian doctrine. So Bishop Love is a sort of lone crusader against heresy.